At present, the "Star Trek" series is shining on the small screen, the new "Picard" is a great success, and the third season of "Discovery" is also coming, compared to the current situation of big-screen movies. The last film, Star Trek 3 Beyond the Stars, failed at the box office in 2016, and the untitled fourth film has been shelved for a long time due to a series of problems.
Recently, Simon Peggy, who plays Scott in the Kelvin timeline, talked about the current state of the film, accusing Paramount of mishandling it and fundamentally killing the future prospects of the film.
In an interview with Full Film and Gamesradar+, Simon Peggy threw up Paramount's mess of the marketing of Star Trek III: Beyond the Stars, failing to take full advantage of the fiftieth anniversary of the Star Trek series (the Star Trek TV series first aired in 1966).
He said:
"The truth is, Star Trek movies aren't as lucrative as Marvel movies. They could only make $500 million at most, and now, at their own scale, it would cost $200 million to make a movie like this. You have to earn three times to be profitable.
"They didn't really take advantage of the fiftieth anniversary. The conservative tactics of the time screwed up the film's publicity. And we've lost momentum. I feel like the loss of Anton was a huge blow to our little family, and as a result of that, we didn't have much enthusiasm for the next film. So I don't know if there's going to be Star Trek 4 again. ”
Obviously, as Simon Page said, Paramount wasn't as confident in Star Trek as Disney was in MCU and Star Wars. It also makes sense, after all, in the rebooted Kelvin series, even the most successful "Dark Borders" only grossed $467 million, and Beyond the Stars performed poorly, with the same budget as the previous one, but only $343 million at the box office. The unexpected death of Anton Eugene (who plays Pavel Chekov) also complicates the situation, with Simon Peggy suggesting that some actors aren't keen on continuing to shoot a fourth film without Eugene's involvement.
Eventually interest in the project will prompt it to be re-evaluated, but for now, it seems that Star Trek will only exist on small screens in the future. Maybe eventually Tarantino's R-rated plan will be approved, who knows?